Character Development

Tink was not all bad: or, rather, she was all bad just now, but, on the other hand, sometimes she was all good. Fairies have to be one thing or the other, because being so small they unfortunately have room for one feeling only at a time. They are, however, allowed to change, only it must be a complete change.

Sometimes when I am with my niece, I think about this passage from J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. Not because my niece is bad, but because no matter what emotion she has, it is all consuming. She’s so tiny, even though she is bigger every day, and she truly cannot contain her happiness/anger/sadness/joy. When she is excited, her face and her body tense up and she looks like she’s going to explode, and then she does, running this way and that with so much energy I don’t know how her tiny body can produce it.

When we grow up, we learn how to control our emotions. We learn we can have more than one emotion at a time. We tell ourselves we’re complex–we’re adults, now. We know how to behave.

Sometimes it’s rather nice to know that growing up has taught me that the world is bigger than just what is happening at the present.

Other times, I look at my niece and I wonder what it must be like to feel pure joy, pure anger, pure excitement.